


Percy

by Jackie Thomas (Jackie_Thomas)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Climate Emergency, Gardens & Gardening, Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:54:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28793505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackie_Thomas/pseuds/Jackie%20Thomas
Summary: A hundred years later, Adam Young has passed away and Crowley is still trying to save the planet.“Where do you think Adam’s gone?”  Crowley asks Aziraphale.  “I’ve been wondering.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic starts with Adam Young's death. This is as an old man of natural causes. The death takes place ‘off screen’.

In the years since he left London, Aziraphale has learned to love gardening. At first nothing more to him than a wilderness in need of taming, his garden has become a place of comfort and refuge. He has come to enjoy the reliable succession of tasks, the skill and artistry of cultivation, the satisfaction of creation. He treasures each day spent in the sea-scented air among humming insects and darting summer birds.

He is working today at the front of the house where the clipped lawns and orderly displays of the previous occupant have, over the decades, given way to a flowering, crowding miscellany of life. At a meeting point of looping beds and gravel pathways there is a lily pond glittering with damselflies. At another, on ground sacred to a Neolithic goddess, wild flowers grow in the crevices of mossy boulders. At another, a patio of weathered wood provides shade and shelter.

The seasons flow through him again; the spring awakenings, the blossoming and fruitfulness, the winter dormancy. He has felt them gradually returning to more ancient rhythms.

In the bottomless, lidless freedom of retirement, where there are few demands on his time, there is always something to do in the garden. He can normally do it undisturbed.

“Excuse me, hello.”

One of his neighbours’ children, a teenage daughter, is at the garden gate. She is out of breath from running down the narrow unpaved road from her family’s farm. 

He has been staking and tying back some of the flowering tall girls by the wall; foxglove, hollyhock and red-hot pokers, and is obliged to emerge from the greenery with petal and pollen on his clothes.

“Hello, Percy,” he says. “Is everything all right?”

In keeping with a tortuous naming system adopted by her parents for their multiple children, she is called Persephone. She has refused to answer to it since she was four.

“I’ve got a question for you.”

“Oh?”

“How long have you lived here? Mum says ten years but I remember you from when I was a kid and I’m eighteen. Panos and Petra don’t and they’re older than me.”

“I see.”

“So how long?”

She has rushed here for this; shorts, a brother’s shirt, slippers, long black hair half dried.

“I’m coming up to my centenary,” he says.

She breaks into a grin, “Come on, tell me.”

“Don’t you believe me?”

He mentally checks his protections. Harmless wards to prevent neighbours seeing him clearly. They are still in place but Percy seems to be seeing him anyway.

She has more urgent questions. Questions that couldn’t wait until she was passing by on her way to the village.

“Where’s your name from? How have I never asked you that before?”

“It’s Arabic, I believe.”

“You’re so English – how did you end up with a-”

He holds out his hand palm up, “Do you know, I think I felt a raindrop, I’d best get inside.”

“Don’t go, please. Just one more question.”

“Very well.”

“How come you look exactly the same as when I was little?”

Oh dear.

A phone starts ringing inside the house.

“The telephone, I’d better - goodbye.”

“Saved by the bell,” Percy says sadly.

He dismisses the strange exchange and hurries inside because it can only be Crowley.

“Angel.”

“Hello,” he says. “Oh, _hello_.”

“I’m in London.”

Aziraphale already knows this. He had known the moment Crowley stepped off the ferry at Dover yesterday morning.

“I’m going to a funeral tomorrow,” Crowley says. “In Tadfield. Adam died.”

“Ah.”

“I got a call from a neighbour.”

“What was it?”

“Nothing sinister – old age.”

“He must have been, what, one hundred and sixteen?”

“Must have been.”

“I’d started to think he’d just keep going.”

“If you want to go to the funeral, I can pick you up.”

“I should like to attend and a lift would be appreciated. But it’s out of your way.”

“Not a problem.”

“You’re welcome to stay here tonight to – uh – break the journey.”

There is a pause, “Yeah, that’d be good. I’ll see you later.”

*~*

Aziraphale’s farmhouse once occupied a much larger piece of land, most of which had been sold to Percy’s grandparents in the last century. All that remains of the old farm is the garden at the front and a lop-sided half-acre at the back.

Crowley’s room overlooks a vegetable patch and a small orchard where disorderly clusters of cherry, plum and pear trees grow. Outside the window there is a huddle of apple trees, crooked and gnarled with age, bending together companionably. Or wilfully, if you ask a demon’s opinion.

Aziraphale opens the window. Beyond the trees is the English Channel; today in the sunshine, all gleaming pearlescence.

As the room airs, he dusts and polishes, sweeps the hardwood floor and puts fresh linen on the bed. The rest of the house accommodates him comfortably. His books and collections, mementos and art are all about him across the two storied sprawl of the old farmhouse. This room is different, it is kept as sparse as a monk’s cell. A comparison Crowley would not appreciate.

It is Crowley’s room but there are no signs of habitation. There are no jewelled boxes on the dressing table, no questionable statuary or unnecessarily imposing chairs. There are no stylish black clothes hanging in the wardrobe or accumulations of sunglasses in the dressing table. Crowley’s belongings remain, as far as Aziraphale knows, in the flat beside the river in London. And he remains ever elsewhere.

*~*

The Bentley negotiates the narrow path to the house before sunset. She is obliged to shrink slightly to manage it scratch free and bend like a reed to cope with the driveway. Aziraphale opens the garage door and she glides in.

A ghost emerges. Such is Aziraphale’s first impression. Crowley’s black glasses are bruises on translucent, frost bitten skin. He is skinny to the point of skeletal. Even his hair, military shaved, lacks its rightful shade of copper. This deterioration has been slow, it has taken decades, but the years since he was last here must have been brutal.

Crowley is wearing his favourite look; thoughtlessly manifested black jeans and shirt. Everything expensively unadorned and impeccably fitted. He seemingly no longer cares that his appearance is more out of date than even Aziraphale’s, stuck somewhere round post-punk 1979 when the humans have turned floaty and baggy again.

Crowley wanders the garden. It is flowering sweetly in these bright, warm days of August. Aziraphale loves the explosions of colour at this time of year; orange and yellow snapdragons, blue agapanthus, velvet-red dahlias, bronze fennel, white clustering verbena, pinky-blue mophead hydrangea. The sweethearts show off for demonic inspection.

“Impressive,” he says.

But it is too messy for Crowley’s tastes. He is deadheading day lilies without even noticing he’s doing it. Since Aziraphale’s brief visit to Hell he better understands this need for order, but he is from Heaven and Crowley will appreciate his wariness of it.

Aziraphale had thought the flower garden at the front and the small-scale productivity at the back might help Crowley find peace and purpose in the years following the termination of his contract with Hell but Crowley had a larger purpose in mind.

“Shall we go inside,” Aziraphale suggests when he sees him flag during a visit to the fig trees preparing to fruit in a sunny corner of the orchard. “I’ve got a very good white in the fridge.”

Crowley follows at his new slower pace.

Aziraphale doesn’t miss the tremble of his hand as he sips, or the effort it entails to focus on conversation. In the end Aziraphale takes the glass away and shepherds him upstairs, undresses him, unresisting but unengaged, and sees him under the covers. 

He switches off the bedside lamp, “Goodnight, Crowley.”

Crowley won’t let him go. He takes his wrist and pulls him into bed. He falls asleep with his back to Aziraphale, Aziraphale’s arms tight around him.

“My precious darling,” Aziraphale whispers when he is sure Crowley won’t hear. “My only love.”

*~*

He gets up early, reluctantly relinquishing the body in his arms to go downstairs and put rosemary bread, started yesterday, into the oven. It is Crowley’s favourite although he pretends indifference. He picks cherries and strawberries in the hope they might also tempt the ghost. While the shower runs, he brews coffee. A rare commodity these days, so saved for special occasions.

He listens to news while he works. He hears that last year the Arctic sea ice refroze after the seasonal melt more thoroughly than it has done since the twentieth century. Hopes are high for this year too. Crowley had felt so cold in bed last night.

Crowley comes downstairs barefooted, buttoning his shirt. He grips Aziraphale’s shoulder and kisses the top of his head. Then he disappears behind his sunglasses as he sips his coffee and struggles to finish a mouthful of bread and butter.

The drive to Tadfield is two hours at a worryingly moderate pace. The Bentley cycles through the gentler of Queen’s repertoire and they don’t speak until they are on the motorway.

“Adam wouldn’t have approved of what you’re doing,” Aziraphale says.

“He didn’t,” Crowley says. “He got on a boat to Brazil to come and tell me. I told him I’ve given the planet another thousand years.”

“It just gives humans an excuse not to look after it themselves.”

“He said that too.”

“You restore a rainforest, they clear it.”

“Then I’ll grow it back again.”

“And if you can’t?”

*~*

The funeral has gathered most of the village as well as a handful of great nieces and nephews. Aziraphale attends the service in a church he remembers visiting in an earlier iteration in the fourteenth century. He walks with the other mourners to a cemetery near Hogback Wood for the burial. Crowley cannot enter the church and finds even the cemetery hostile to him. 

“I’ll lurk, find me afterwards.”

The villagers of Tadfield knew Adam well but Dog has been invisible to them for decades. They cannot comprehend a hundred-year-old pet and the human mind has a talent for overlooking the incomprehensible. 

Dog follows the coffin and watches as it is lowered into the grave. His pitiful whine goes unheard by all except Aziraphale. When the mourners have dispersed for drinks and sandwiches in the local pub, Dog lies down and looks prepared to stay.

“That won’t do, my dear,” Aziraphale tells him. 

Dog peers up at him. He has never minded Aziraphale’s Heavenly origins. Perhaps it has been so long since he’s been there, the animal can no longer smell the celestial on him. He sniffs Aziraphale’s hand with only mild curiosity.

“Adam is not here anymore, but you can come home with me.”

Dog makes a questioning noise.

“I have steak and I doubt Crowley will eat it.”

Dog barks.

“Yes, I understand perfectly. It is hard to be without the one you have shared the planet with, but we who are left behind must make the best of it. And as I say, steak.”

Dog snuffles a goodbye at the edge of the grave then, tail down, follows Aziraphale. They find Crowley on a bench overlooking a wooded dell where The Them once had their den. Aziraphale can sense Adam’s boundless love here as strongly as he could a century ago. It is grown into the root systems of the trees now, it comes up with the bluebells every spring. 

Aziraphale settles on the bench while Dog sniffs around Crowley’s feet. The two have always been fond of each other. They are travellers from the same land, veterans of the same war.

“I appear to have acquired a Hellhound,” he tells Crowley.

“How very like you.” 

Dog sits to have his ears scratched, “I’m surprised Hell hasn’t taken him back,” Crowley says. “He was only on Earth because of the antichrist.”

“I doubt he’s much suited to Hell anymore,” Aziraphale says.

“Because you’re a good boy?” Crowley says to Dog.

Dog doesn’t object.

“Where do you think Adam’s gone?” Crowley asks Aziraphale. “I’ve been wondering.”

“He was a good man and did nothing to earn Hell, but I doubt Heaven would be keen to host him.”

“Would they take him anyway?”

“I don’t know. Satan’s son in Heaven; they’d be terrified.”

“He’s just another human soul.”

“Do you believe that?”

Crowley shrugs, “No. And I know Hell wouldn’t want him either.”

*~*

When they draw up outside the farmhouse, Crowley doesn’t get out of the car when Aziraphale does.

“You won’t come in?” 

“Another time.”

Aziraphale had hoped to persuade him to stay with wine and home comforts, but he is being purposefully denied the opportunity.

“Let me come with you,” he says. “I can help. Just give me time to find someone to look after Dog.”

“No, you’ve already made it clear you disapprove of what I’m doing.”

“It’s not a question of whether I approve or not. You’re damaged. Your power isn’t unlimited and you’re already not well enough to keep working.”

“I don’t get _ill_.”

“Nonsense, look at you,” he snaps. “When you discorporate, what then? You’ll fall straight into Hell’s hands and I won’t be able to do anything about it. And for what? The humans will save the planet or destroy it, whatever you do.”

Crowley reaches into the Bentley’s glove compartment and comes out with a solid black sphere the size of a golf ball. 

“Can you take this?”

“What is it?”

“All the plastic from the Atlantic Ocean.”

“For Heaven’s sake, the power needed -”

“If you want to help, get rid of that.”

It weighs nothing in the palm of his hand. Its true dimensions are disguised by the strength of Crowley’s will. He wraps his own will around it and Crowley gasps as he is relieved of the burden.

“Be careful,” Aziraphale says. “Please.”

“See you, angel.”

Crowley starts the engine, the car fills with music and, without a further word or glance back, he goes. Aziraphale watches the Bentley until it disappears from sight.

At his feet Dog stretches and investigates smells. His ears prick and he dives off up the path. Aziraphale follows and finds him barking at Percy.

“He’s not a bitey one, is he?” She asks.

“Not at all.”

She pats Dog’s head and he jumps in delight, wagging furiously.

“He’s gorgeous, what’s he called?”

“His name is Dog.”

“Hello, lovely Dog. Are you looking after him?”

“I – yes -, his master died.”

She glances up and takes in Aziraphale’s dark suit, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“What’s discorporate?” Percy asks. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

“Oh, it’s - well it’s - is that the time?”

“Did that man really take all the plastic out of the sea? My dad says it was a hoax. There was none there in the first place.”

“I must get on. See you soon. Good day.”

Aziraphale scoops up a reluctant Dog and goes inside, closing the door firmly behind him.

He loses the afternoon to feeling sad, old and abandoned. Then when darkness falls, he opens a bottle of red and prepares their supper. Steak has become, once again, a luxury item but it is Dog who benefits from his hopeful purchase. He eats both portions along with the vegetables off Aziraphale’s plate before he has had a chance to check whether they are suitable for canines. He supposes Hellhound dietary requirements are not exacting.

The bottle of wine holds his attention through the night in a way his current reading does not, and by the time the sun angles its way in through the farmhouse windows, he can no longer sense the coal-diamond-crow-feather presence of Crowley. He is out of the country and out of reach already.

Dog is signalling urgently that he would benefit from some fresh air and they go for a walk on the beach. He has never given much thought to the nature of this creature. Never considered whether the occult beast he once was still exists below the surface of the delightful scruffy mongrel he became. He was formed by an eleven-year-old boy’s expectation of what his own dog should be. Will that rub away now Adam is gone? Will Aziraphale come home one day to a slavering, red eyed monster. He shows no sign of any such transformation as he discovers the joy of barking at the tide. Perhaps he too has transcended his destiny.

Later they walk to the village to buy dogfood. The shopkeeper suggests other necessities. Food and water bowls, chewy toys, a leash. The latter does not befit the dignity of such an ancient being but he gets the other things. He also purchases a comfortable looking dog bed in case he prefers to sleep in his own space. He knows Hell creatures can be particular.

Dog is good company as Aziraphale works in the gardens that afternoon. He can be puppyish, leaping after butterflies, sticking his snout into things he shouldn’t. At other times, he sits beside the gate as if he is waiting. There is only one person he can be waiting for. At night Dog stretches himself out beside Aziraphale as he reads and it is reassuring to have a warm, living creature pressed up against him. He is glad Adam had this friendship throughout his long, mostly solitary life.

The following day brings news of land and ocean temperatures dropping another fraction. The media is full of graphs and charts and experts. Now familiar gatherings of baffled scientists and smug sceptics appear on every channel. Humans are as they have always been; questioning, denying, grateful, ungrateful, hopeful, pessimistic, joking, lecturing. Talking, talking, talking. But no one speaks of Crowley, no one has spotted him amid the ice floes, no one but Aziraphale knows of his lonely sacrifice.

Aziraphale takes Dog for another long walk before going to work in the front garden. In the afternoon, enthusiastic barking heralds the arrival of Percy carrying a cake tin. She is wearing shorts and an artfully deconstructed t-shirt. Despite poor Crowley’s efforts, it has been another hot day.

“I was just about to take a break,” he says. She looks so disappointed he adds, “Would you care to come in?”

She smiles happily, “Yes, please.” 

He ushers her and Dog inside.

“How are you wearing a jumper?” She asks. “It’s forty degrees today. Is it because you’re a hundred years old? My nan used to wear about ten cardigans right through the summer.”

“No,” he says. “That is not why I’m wearing a jumper. And I’m considerably older than a hundred years.”

“You’re so funny,” she says.

His human form conveniently self-regulates so the ambient temperature has always been irrelevant to his clothing decisions. He is, in fact, dressing a lot less elaborately than he did when he was working for Heaven and running the bookshop. He wears casual clothes for the garden; trousers and shirts that never require miracles to maintain. He lives as a human now, as far as he can, and uses his powers sparingly. But he does have standards, he’s not some kind of _beatnik_ in a vest.

Percy hands him her tin, “Apple cake,” she says. “Don’t worry, I didn’t bake it, it’s from the farm shop. Mum says it’s your favourite.”

“That’s very kind.”

“You looked like you needed cheering up.”

She spots Crowley’s ball of plastic waste in the fruit bowl and picks it up. He’ll shoot it into the sun, he’s decided. Or another star further away. Crowley would have done the same had he not been so depleted.

“Is it really what your mate said it was? The plastic from the sea.”

Any human who had overheard the interaction between himself and Crowley should have forgotten it immediately, or translated it into something comprehensible to them. She has remembered it precisely.

He sighs, “Does that sound plausible?”

“No, but, _age of miracles_ and all that.”

“Age of _what_? Who called it that?” 

She shrugs, “Everyone.”

Perfect. If anything is going to bring the archangels galloping down to Earth after a century of silence it is talk of unauthorised miracles.

Percy wanders the room that serves as kitchen, living and dining room, bouncing the little ball from hand to hand. The room is lined with books from floor to ceiling and many of his decorative objects are on display here too. She has been here before; her family have come for Christmas Eve drinks for as far back as any of them remember. But she is _seeing_ it for the first time.

“This place is amazing.” 

“Thank you,” he says, filling the kettle and deciding the occasion calls for leaves and teapot. “Are you still at school, Percy?”

“I just left. I got my exam results a couple of days ago.”

“Were you pleased with them?”

“Yes. I got what I needed. I’m doing medicine.”

“A doctor. How marvellous. Will you be going to university soon?”

“No, bad luck for you. You’ve got me until October.”

Dog at her heels, she tours the shelves and ornaments. She frowns over a framed photograph of Aziraphale outside the bookshop on VE Day.

“Is your friend with the hearse your significant other?”

Can she sense him on the other side of the picture, he wonders? So proud of his new camera and the humans who made it.

“She’s not a hearse, she’s a Bentley. And his name is Crowley. What is a significant other?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. It seemed like you and him had a bit of a history.”

“Yes, we do have that, if nothing else.”

“You can tell me; I’m thinking of specialising in psychiatry.”

He laughs, “Perhaps another time. When you’re fully qualified.”

Would he even be able to speak of Crowley after so many centuries of secrecy? Could he come close to expressing the complexity of their connection, perhaps explain it to himself in the process. What a relief it would be to tell their story. Even to this human child, mysteriously impervious to his deflections.

“It’s weird, you know,” she says. “I went my whole life without giving you a second thought. I don’t mean that in a horrible way. And now, suddenly I have to know everything about you.”

“What happened before?” He asks. “Before you wanted to know everything. Any strange events?”

“Like what?”

“Dreams, visitations, that sort of thing.”

“Not really. Definitely no visitations. I had a strange dream or two. But I assumed that was because of the vodka at our results party.”

“Can you remember the dreams?”

“No details, just impressions. They weren’t nightmares, though. I woke up happy.”

“Oh, I am glad.”

Once the tea is ready and the cake cut, she comes to sit with him at the kitchen table. The ritual of afternoon tea is pleasurable and reassuring, the talk moves to safer topics. Her family, their farm, her plans for the future. Dog calms down too. He sits on Percy’s lap, curled contentedly, not even bothering to beg for cake.


	2. Chapter 2

In the century since the world didn’t end, the air is cleaner and so is the sea, the ice at the poles is more solid, there are more trees and wetlands, there is less desert, there are fewer floods, fires and storms. Species that were in danger thrive, their nests and territories often defended against human encroachment by rumours of giant, venomous snakes.

Crowley had left not long after Hell released him from his obligations. He had it in mind, he said, to use his powers to protect the habitat of the remaining gorillas in Zaire. While Aziraphale closed the shop and moved out of the city, this retirement project of Crowley’s extended to encompass the habitat of every creature on the planet. When the fatigue of millennia of service to capricious management immobilised Aziraphale, Crowley demonstrated unheard of focus. When Aziraphale, scared to perform even the humblest of miracles for fear of drawing Heaven’s attention, realised he ought to do something about the weeds starting to reach the windowsills, Crowley brought coral reefs back to life with the touch of a fingertip.

*~*

The next day Percy is back to take Dog for a walk, the day after that she comes to collect her mother’s cake tin, two days later Dog squeezes under the garden gate when Aziraphale isn’t looking and barks outside her room until she comes out and brings him home. He does the same thing on the following morning.

After that she is just there, excuseless, helping in the garden and taking turns to make the tea. The tide of questions recedes and she seems content to weed, plant and repot at his side.

They are both chatty, they talk the day through on a multitude of topics. She resembles Crowley in that respect but he sometimes forgets she doesn’t have the same personal involvement in history. He finds her looking at him in smiling bemusement. He has just told her Hippocrates had a lovely, soothing voice and that’s why he did so well.

“And you’re how old exactly?” She asks.

“I can’t be precise. We didn’t even start counting until about six thousand years ago.”

“Right,” she says continuing to wrangle sweet peas. “Silly me.”

Percy has recently passed her driving test and, wanting to show off, she borrows one of the farm cars to take Aziraphale and Dog to London for the day. She is a less terrifying driver than Crowley but has her moments.

He has not visited Soho in half a century and scarcely recognises it. There is little trace of the shiny boutiques of the twenty first century or the sex industry of the twentieth. Instead, everyday shops and small factories reminiscent of the Victorian era have returned, along with a residential population of working people to service them.

Despite the transformation, Soho has lost none of its Bohemian air. There are artists’ studios among the garment workshops and the world gathers here as it has done for centuries. There are still restaurants and delicatessens at reassuring intervals and the cooking smells are as eclectic as they ever were. They buy flatbreads, curries and chai from a street vendor and take them back to the bookshop.

In the time since he has been away, the shop has returned to its original, modest geography but miracles he laid down centuries ago keep decay and intruders at bay. It still knows him. It welcomes him joyfully with warm light, bookish smells and the crackle of a ghostly gramophone recording of Mahler.

The shop is now almost invisible to humans but Percy sees it. While he sets out their meal, she runs a finger along dustless shelves.

“How long have you had this place?” She asks.

“Since the eighteenth century,” he absently admits and she doesn’t even bother to raise an eyebrow.

“Why have you still got it?”

“I might need it again when I’ve finished my retirement.”

She gathers up Dog and hugs him, “This place feels so – I don’t know – scarred. There was a fire and nothing was left.”

“How do you know that?” He asks.

“I can smell it in the air, can’t you?”

“It’s fainter now.”

“It burnt down. I don’t understand how it’s still here.”

“A young friend restored it.”

Her eyes squeeze shut, “Your Crowley was here. When the fire was burning.”

“You see that?”

“He thought he’d lost you and he couldn’t bear it.”

“And yet we rarely see one another, or even speak. He makes sure of it.”

“He’s working, he’s – it’s because he wants you somewhere that won’t burn.”

Crowley has always wanted to protect him. Why has this never occurred to him?

Percy opens her eyes. She has started to hear the music the shop is playing for him. Frowning and unable to find her own explanation, the inevitable question finally arrives.

“Aziraphale, who are you?”

“I’m an angel, dear.”

She mulls over this news like a child weighing up whether to believe her parents when they tell her Father Christmas has visited.

“You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?” 

“Yes.”

He wonders why she isn’t more shocked. He had been prepared to use a calming miracle but she is unperturbed.

“Is that angel, as in...” she makes a flapping gesture with an arm.

“Yes, like that.”

“Like the Angel Gabriel?”

“Somewhat like. But he has a stronger jaw than I, very good teeth, exceptional hair.”

She gives this due consideration as well, “I might have more questions.”

“Of course.”

“Why can’t I see your wings?”

“One thing at a time.”

*~*

In September many of Aziraphale’s trees come into fruit. During this time of abundance he preserves, ferments and pickles. After the dispiriting sticky messes of his first attempts, he has spent decades perfecting his techniques and is fond beyond measure of the jams, chutneys and liqueurs he produces.

There is always a lot left over when he has put aside what he needs for himself and for Christmas gifts for acquaintances in the village. Surplus fruit goes to a Sikh temple that feeds the poor of a nearby town. Percy’s mother also sells his wares in her farm shop. This brings him enough that he need manifest very little money throughout the year. 

He offers Percy a summer job helping with the harvest, thus formalising her already almost permanent presence at the farmhouse.

They are sampling a new batch of plum jam, or rather Aziraphale is. Percy has cut back on the tasting, since, she says, she can no longer button her jeans and constantly feels nauseous. Instead, she is educating herself on the subject of angels by reading dubious articles on her phone.

“I thought you might be a cherubim,” she says. “Because they sound cute. But they’re not, are they, and you don’t have four faces.”

“I’m not cherubim, but you’re not looking at my true form.”

“I’m not? What does your true form look like? It can’t be this one made of wheels.”

“It most certainly isn’t.”

“Because I’ve never seen anyone more afraid of being in a car.”

“My true form is not a wheel. That was one of Crowley’s inventions, I believe.”

He spreads jam on to toast and tastes. He is experimenting with a new recipe involving ginger and this is the third attempt. 

“Just right,” he declares. “But it needs fresh bread. I should bake. I can’t remember the last time I made brioche. Are you sure you won’t try some?”

“No thanks, I’ll heave again. So what’s your true form?”

“Crêpes.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“I’m going to make crêpes and a compote. Would any of your family like to come?”

“I’ll bring mum and the little ones. Cheers. So are you made of fire?”

“My true form is impossible to describe in human terms, but that would be closest.” She absorbs this as calmly as she does every revelation. “I’m a principality, if that helps.”

She looks this up, “ _Principalities guide and protect nations, groups of people or institutions. Principalities preside over bands of angels and charge them to fulfil the divine ministry._ Do you?”

“I’m no longer employed by Heaven, but even before, there have never been enough angels on the ground to make up a band. I’ve had to adapt my mission.”

She is too polite to ask if making pear brandy counts as a mission.

“Are there other angels on Earth?”

“No, just me.”

There had been no one else for so long now. Nothing remotely celestial, not a whiff of brimstone either. Just Crowley’s distant little light, growing dimmer every day.

“It says principalities are depicted wearing a crown and carrying a sceptre. Have you got a crown and sceptre squirrelled away somewhere?”

“I’m afraid not. That was Crowley’s idea of a joke. He wrote quite a few of those articles you’re consulting. The outrageous ones, anyway.”

“Is Crowley an angel?”

“He used to be.”

“When you say you’re no longer employed by Heaven, what do you mean?”

“We had a difference of opinion. Heaven views me as a traitor.”

“They must be idiots. Difference of opinion about what?”

“Humans, Crowley, the end of the world.”

She looks up from her screen, “I’m going to need the whole story.”

“Of course.”

She reads quietly for a few minutes, “Aziraphale, was the Garden of Eden real?”

“It was and yes I was there. I was also with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.”

She falls silent and puts her phone away. He seems to have found the limit of her serene acceptance of what she must previously have regarded as fantasy.

“Definitely going to need the whole story.” She mutters. Then she unfolds herself from the kitchen chair, “I’ll start watering the Garden of Aziraphale.”

*~*

He knows the moment Crowley collapses. Aziraphale feels their connection wrench. If they had been two climbers tied together on a mountainside, he would have been watching his partner falling away into the air.

He is with Percy in the orchard when it happens and she gasps. Impossibly, she feels it too. She drops the basket of fruit she is carrying and her eyes glow _red_.

“ _Demon_ ,” she shouts in a voice that is not her own. “ _Come to me_.”

A moment later Crowley is lying on the ground between them.

Percy has brought him back.

He is unconscious and injured. He is not moving, not breathing. But he is still in there, he has not discorporated.

Aziraphale falls to his knees. He touches Crowley’s face. He is freezing.

“Percy, how did you -?”

Her eyes have returned to normal and she has clamped her hands over her mouth.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!”

He takes off his cardigan and covers Crowley with it.

“Dearest,” he whispers. “Can you hear me? Wake up.”

He doesn’t stir.

Aziraphale gathers him up and takes him inside. Percy darts ahead opening doors but when he goes upstairs to Crowley’s room, she stays downstairs, holding back a wildly barking Dog.

He lays Crowley on the bed and examines him. Beneath the tatty clothes and ingrained dirt his wounds are superficial. Insect bites, unhealed scratches and grazes, a red mark transforming into a wide bruise on his ribs. But there are no broken bones or serious injuries and his human organs are functioning. It is the demonic essence which lies beneath that is in trouble. This part of him is in a deep, unrousable sleep.

Aziraphale covers him with a blanket and goes downstairs to where Percy is waiting. She has already recovered from the shock she experienced. He was going to use a drop of power to soothe her but she doesn’t need it.

“How is he?” She asks.

“I don’t know. Are you all right?”

“Yes but, I don’t understand what happened.”

“We can talk about it later. Why don’t you go home and rest?”

“I can’t help?”

“No dear, off you go.”

Soon after, eyes glazed, she gathers her bag, takes Dog and goes home.

Aziraphale goes back upstairs to Crowley. He undresses him, washes him and treats his wounds. He dresses him warmly and covers him with blankets.

He believes Crowley is in this state because, over the course of a century of wielding Biblical-grade miracles, he has used up all his power.

He takes his hand and focuses. What if Crowley can draw on Aziraphale’s powers to replenish his own? What if he can be brought back that way? What if the Fall changed nothing about the way Crowley is constituted and their powers, which were originally drawn from the same source, remain the same? 

A small, mean voice insists Crowley is not a battery in need of charging; what is gone is gone. He ignores it and holds his hand. He keeps hold of it throughout the night. But in the morning, he is yet to move or show any sign of life.

There is a hesitant tap at the door.

“Come in, Percy,” he says.

Dog is ahead of her. He leaps up onto the bed and sniffs around Crowley. He licks his face, whines and lies down beside him.

“I made tea,” she says.

“Thank you.”

She sets the mug on the bedside table, “How is he?”

“He hasn’t moved.”

“Do you know why?”

“Exhaustion I presume. How are you?”

“Fine, I slept.”

“Have you remembered anything?”

“It was just – instinct. I don’t think my brain had anything to do with it.”

“You are extraordinary, you have extraordinary powers.”

“Freak of nature. I called him demon. Is he a demon?”

“Oh, yes, but you needn’t worry about that. He’s not the bad sort.”

“There are good demons?”

“I know there is one.” 

He looks down at Crowley’s motionless form, expecting him to rise up protesting the adjective and is disappointed when he does not.

“I had a strange dream last night,” Percy says.

He picks up his mug and sips his tea without letting go of Crowley’s hand.

“Oh, yes?”

“There was a little boy, about ten years old, waving at me and smiling. It felt real.”

“What did he look like?”

“White kid, curly hair, sweet looking like a painting of a cherub. But _lots_ going on behind the eyes. You could tell he wasn’t properly human.”

“I see.”

“What does it mean?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. It sounds like a very good omen, that’s all. No call to read too much into it.”

“You know who he is.”

“I don’t. I mean, without seeing him, how would I know?”

She gives him a sceptical look, “You’re a terrible liar.”

He concentrates on his tea until she gives up and goes back downstairs.

*~*

It doesn’t work and it doesn’t work. Aziraphale holds Crowley’s hand throughout each day. He channels power into him, lets it trickle and seep in softly. But Crowley doesn’t open his eyes, he doesn’t move, he doesn’t breathe. Aziraphale doesn’t let go. At night, he climbs in beside him, lays his hand over the place a human would have a heart. He shelters him with his wings and, sometimes, finds himself sobbing into copper hair.

Days blur into night and summer blurs into autumn and it doesn’t work. He would know if Crowley discorporated. He would know the moment it happened. He would know and there would be nothing he could do. If Crowley discorporates, Hell won’t let him go again. He will be lost forever. So he wraps his power around him and doesn’t let go.

Percy is around. She comes in each day with Dog, who has transferred his allegiance to her completely. She looks after the garden and the vegetable patch, picks fruit as it ripens and takes it to the temple. She keeps Aziraphale supplied with tea and snacks, brightens the room with vases of flowers from the garden, forces him out for walks when she can. She helps him too as he cares for Crowley. Together they change sheets and clothes, look after his wounds, keep him clean, turn him regularly.

One day she says, “He looks better.”

“Do you think so?”

“Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.”

He has noticed it too, but dared not acknowledge it. It’s not much; a more natural skin tone starting to overcome the grey pallor, no more than that. Aziraphale smiles for what feels like the first time since Crowley dropped out of the sky.

“I believe you’re right.”

She works later than usual that day and it is evening when she comes in again.

“Aziraphale, I need to ask a favour. I know its bad timing.”

“What is it, dear?”

“Would it be all right if I stayed with you for a bit? Things are getting a bit much at home. I want to get away until mum and dad calm down.”

“Calm down about what?”

She glances at Crowley, “Stuff - nothing - I’ll tell you later.”

He knows Percy’s parents as well as he knows any humans. They are kind and caring of their brood, although strict by the standards of the time. They would never purposely drive a child away. Perhaps Percy’s new abilities are manifesting in ways the household is struggling with.

“You’re welcome to stay providing your parents know where you are.”

“Thanks, you’re amazing. I can sleep on the couch.”

He has never had a guest before. Every room in the house except this one is full of books and ephemera. There is a wardrobe in one of the rooms housing, with a little help from a fourth dimension, favourite items of clothing from the last three centuries, but he has never needed a bedroom. The attic however, is empty. He surreptitiously waves a hand, hoping that, as Heaven haven’t objected to his demon-replenishing project, they won’t mind a miraculous loft conversion.

“You are welcome to use the attic room.”

“You’ve got an attic room?”

“Er yes, you’ll find everything you need.”

He waves his hand again to manifest such items as might be needed.

“Did you just…?” He gives her an innocent look and she abandons the question. “Thanks, I really appreciate it. I swear it won’t be for –”

“ _Adam_?”

Crowley speaks.

“ _Adam_.”

He has not opened his eyes but his head turns toward Percy. 

“ _Adam_ ,” he says again. His voice is a dry whisper but the word is clear.

She gives Aziraphale a questioning look and reaches for Crowley’s hand.

“It’s Percy,” she says gently. 

“ _Adam_ ,” he repeats.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale urges. “Come back now, open your eyes.”

He doesn’t, he falls silent and doesn’t move again.

“Whose Adam?” Percy asks.

“Our friend.”

“A human?”

“Essentially. You remind me of him. You remind me of him a lot.”

*~*

Crowley continues to recover. He begins to move, his colour returns and he mutters incoherently at his dreams. Once or twice Aziraphale catches a glimpse of beloved yellow as his eyelids flicker.

His powers return too, or at least the automatic functions that need no conscious direction. He starts to breathe again, the last traces of his injuries vanish and he no longer requires any physical care.

When Crowley finally regains consciousness, it is October and the leaves on the apple trees outside are wearing their autumn colours. He frowns as he focuses and his gaze settles on Aziraphale.

“Angel,” he whispers.

“My darling,” Aziraphale says.

His eyes close a moment later as he falls into ordinary sleep. He wakes properly as evening falls.

“ _There_ you are,” Aziraphale says.

He sips the water Aziraphale gives him and claims to feel fine.

“How did I get here?” He asks.

“Good question. Can you tell me what happened? Where were you?”

“Kenya,” he says after a moment’s reflection. “The - savanna, no one was about. I collapsed and I don’t remember anything after that.”

“You’ve been unconscious for weeks.”

“Have I?”

“Percy brought you back.”

“Who?”

“One of my neighbour’s children. Well, not quite a child, she’s eighteen. She summoned you. Drawing on some non-human source of power.”

“Is she a demon conjurer?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“How then? What’s wrong? You’re worried.”

“Oh Crowley, you’ve just woken up.”

“Tell me. Go on.”

He sighs. To say it out loud makes it real. “I think she’s the anti-Christ.”

Crowley stares at him, “Nah, if she’s eighteen she’s too old.”

“Can we be sure of that?”

“What makes you think -”

“Deflection wards don’t work on her, she knows things she can’t possibly know and she pulled you half way across the planet with four words. Is that enough to be going on with?”

“Uh, yeah. Couldn’t be one of yours? Another St Joan.”

“Dog is loyal to her.”

“Right.”

“And you called her Adam.”

“ _Did_ I?”

“But she’s a perfectly pleasant young woman. She doesn’t seem inclined to bring about end times.”

“Have you heard from anyone? Upstairs, down?”

“Not a peep.”

“And she’s coming into her powers?”

“It appears so.”

“Oh, Satan. I’m not up to taking on Heaven and Hell right now.”

Aziraphale squeezes Crowley’s hand, which he has taken hold of out of habit and keeps hold of because no objection has been made, “Then we had better get you fighting fit again, hadn’t we?”


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning, Aziraphale knocks at the attic room door and Percy calls him in. 

He is pleased to see he made a good job of the loft room. Wood beams, skylights, cheerful décor and, remarkably, an en suite bathroom. He has made her an overstuffed two-seater sofa on which she is sprawling with laptop, books and Dog.

“Good morning, my dear. Are you well?”

“Yes, thanks. What’s up?”

“Crowley’s awake.”

“Fantastic, how is he?”

“Quite well. He would like to meet you.”

She slides her feet into flip flops, “Because I’m such a mutant?”

“Because you saved his life.”

They go downstairs to Crowley’s room. He is in bed, propped up on pillows. Dog leaps up to greet him and Percy perches on the edge of a chair.

“You look better,” she says.

Aziraphale found a pair of dark glasses for Crowley but he hasn’t put them on. Her gaze takes in the shape and colour of his eyes, but she doesn’t seem alarmed. 

“I think I need to thank you for the lift home,” Crowley says.

“That’s all right.”

“It occurs to me,” Aziraphale says. “That you should be leaving for university soon.”

“I deferred my place for a year.”

“Did you? Is that what you argued with your parents about?”

“Sort of. It’s not really practical to go at the moment.”

“Isn’t it, why not?”

She looks down at her hands and doesn’t answer.

“You’re pregnant,” Crowley says.

She looks up, “Yes.” 

Of course, Crowley would understand immediately; he is so quick about everything. But Aziraphale puts all the clues together now. The nausea, the family strife, even some minor wardrobe adjustments. The pregnancy hasn’t really started to show yet but now he properly looks with non-human eyes, he can tell. He is embarrassed it had not occurred to him.

She smiles at his expression, “I wasn’t sure if you knew.”

“If you want him to notice something, balance a Bakewell Tart on it,” Crowley says.

“Yes, thank you, Crowley. And congratulations, Percy. Is the father -?”

“No idea! It must have happened on A levels night at the party, but I don’t remember. How can I not remember?” She looks from angel to demon. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Absolutely nothing. Everything is splendid. Smashing.”

“I believe, ‘be not afraid’ is traditional,” Crowley says, enjoying himself.

“What - what are your plans?”

“I’m going to try to keep the baby. And go to uni next year, if I can manage it. Don’t worry, I’ll go back home before its born.”

“You absolutely must stay here,” Aziraphale says. “Um, if you want to, that is.”

“Really? Thank you. Why are you both looking at me like that?”

“We’re not – nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“It was less weird telling my parents,” Percy says, getting up and summoning Dog with the promise of a walk. “I’m glad you’re better, Mr Crowley.”

*~*

Although now awake and seemingly out of danger Crowley does not yet have his powers back in any but the smallest ways. They agree that what Aziraphale has been doing has helped so they continue to spend most of their days keeping physical contact. This is a stranger experience now the other is more his old hissing and slithering self, but it reminds him, pleasantly, of a human retirement; two old people holding hands the whole day through.

On a fine afternoon in late October, Crowley is at last strong enough to go outside. They visit the garden which Percy has been caring for, and then walk at a gentle pace through the orchard before stopping to rest on a bench overlooking the sea. Percy is at work nearby, clearing fallen leaves.

Crowley’s gaze lingers over a patch of tall red campion growing wild beneath an oak at the edge of the orchard, its last late flowers of the season starting to fade. Finding no strength to object to the unruly growth, he leans back on the bench and lifts his face to catch the sun.

“You know,” he says finally. “It wasn’t just me out there for all those years. I wasn’t working alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“There was another power, alongside mine. Almost from the beginning.”

“What kind of power? I felt nothing.”

“It was healing. Cleansing. It was good. Angel-good.”

“Surely not. No one’s been here since they took us from the park.”

“It was _you_ ,” Crowley says.

“I’m afraid it wasn’t.” 

“I could feel your blessings. Faint but there, mixing with something earthly and ancient. As ancient as the planet but no older.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think it might be what happens when an angel takes up gardening.”

Aziraphale gasps, “Oh my, are you sure?”

“I wasn’t, but I am now. It’s strong here, like a power source.”

He had been so careful to ration his power. Had he been seeding the planet with it all along? Working it in to the soil every time he planted a bulb or lost an afternoon to weeding.

“Oh my.”

“There’s me freezing my arse off in Antarctica with the blessed penguins, while you’re running mission control from your front garden between biscuit breaks.”

“And they never said a word. Heaven. They didn’t try to interfere.”

“They don’t give a stuff.”

“And this means you don’t have to go back.”

“I don’t think so, angel.”

“Haven’t we just established we can work from home?”

“Not what I need to do.”

“Then I shall come with you. Please don’t stop me again.”

“Don’t – no - I want you here. Here in your own Eden.”

Aziraphale strokes fingers through Crowley’s hair, “It can’t be Eden without the serpent, now can it?”

Crowley gives a huff of frustration, capturing the hand from his hair, “I’m not going anywhere, anytime soon. I wouldn’t make it to the end of the driveway. But I’ll have to eventually. This planet has to survive.”

“You. You have to survive.”

They watch Dog hurtling across the grass and diving into Percy’s pile of leaves, scattering it in the process.

She pulls him out and cuddles him, “Little beast.”

“Anyway,” Crowley says. “I need to be here for the next eleven and a half years at least. We both do.”

“Quite, we mustn’t mislay this one.”

Percy wanders over and sits on the grass in a sliver of sunshine. 

“Come on, you two. You’ve been looking at me like I’m about to pair red wine with fish. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Yes, of course,” says Aziraphale.

“Angel,” Crowley warns.

“I believe Adam has been protecting her from shocks.”

“Adam,” Percy says. “Your essentially human friend?”

“Indeed. So first things first. We don’t think you’re the antichrist.”

She gapes at him, “What?”

Crowley gives him a withering look, “Great start, angel. Listen, Percy. When was it that you started to notice Aziraphale? When did you start to see him properly?”

She tears her gaze away from Aziraphale to focus on the question.

“The day after my exam results. I woke up with a hangover obsessed with knowing everything about him.”

“Adam died a few days before that,” Aziraphale says.

“How did he die?” Percy asks.

“He was a very old man and it was a completely natural passing.”

Crowley takes up the story, “Adam was born to the title ‘antichrist’ with the destiny to destroy the world and start a war between Heaven and Hell. He was given Dog, a Hellhound, to help him with the task. He rejected his destiny and saved the world along with everyone in it. He was just eleven years old when he did it.”

Aziraphale goes on, “Adam was kind, clever and brave and loved the world. We think that when he died, instead of going to Heaven or Hell, he came to you to be born on Earth again.”

“By choice?” Percy asks.

“That we don’t know. Except that you, my dear, are also kind, clever and brave, so he had good reason to choose you.”

“But that means you think my baby is the antichrist?”

Aziraphale and Crowley exchange a glance, “We do.”

“Satan’s child?”

“Yes.”

She buries her face in Dog’s fur.

“And he was the one who brought Crowley back?”

“It was you who brought Crowley back. But you must have accessed some of his power.”

“Is he going to be human?” She asks. “I mean he’s not going to have hooves and a tail and -” She makes two little horns out of her fingers and waggles them about.

“He was entirely human last time, or apparently so. A full complement of toesie-wosies, I believe.”

“Is he going to try to destroy the world when he’s eleven?”

“We believe,” Aziraphale says. “That upbringing is crucial. Crowley and myself have a certain amount of experience in this area.”

“Which we promise not to draw on.”

“Crowley, I’m trying to reassure her.”

“We think,” Crowley says. “That Adam came to you partly because you know Aziraphale and, if anything apocalyptic happened, you and the child wouldn’t be alone.”

“So you’re basically telling me I’m the teenage, single mother of the antichrist because of you?”

“Er, yes.”

She sighs, “Look, Satan’s not going to want him weekends is he, because…”

Crowley snorts, “Not a hands-on dad is our Lucifer.”

“But we shall be here,” Aziraphale says laying his hand on her shoulder. “You won’t be in the least bit alone.”


	4. Epilogue

A fine, sunny day is beginning and Aziraphale has brought breakfast outside. There is enough for three laid out on the porch table in case Percy has time for a bite, or some planetary alignment inspires Crowley to taste a morsel. Dog occupies one of the other chairs and is standing by to assist with any surplus toast and jam. Crowley is imposing order on the gladioli.

“You can’t be cramming everything together like this,” he tells Aziraphale. “I’m thinning them out, no argument.”

“But they like the company,” Aziraphale says, mostly for the reaction.

“Like the company! The company! Look at this. White spots, they’re diseased. These’ll have to be cut back.”

“All right, but leave something other than bare stems. You’re worse than the slugs sometimes.”

Crowley took an interest in the garden as soon as he had strength enough. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work correcting its many flaws. Aziraphale was too pleased to have him back to object. 

Crowley likes to keep things tidy, of course he does. But more than that, he likes to strengthen and restore, to coax each leaf and petal to its own perfection. He is required to do this without menacing the poor things. This remains a bone of contention.

His influence is everywhere. He has introduced shrubs which are green throughout the year, some of which make dear little berries for the birds in the autumn. There is a lush, leafy darkness among the cheerful flowers now, more give and take between summer and winter. It was what the garden lacked and he saw it immediately. Crowley always did have a natural affinity with the soil. Which is, as it turns out, just as well for the Earth. 

“Anthony J Crowley, are you threatening my plants?” Aziraphale asks, aware of a low muttering.

“Just having a quiet word.”

He was recently embarrassed to have been caught sweettalking the succulents, so Aziraphale gives him the benefit of the doubt.

Percy comes out of the house with Eve on her hip and her bottle in hand. Judging by her expression, the morning routine has not gone smoothly. Although the baby looks perfectly happy.

“We’re up, we’re dressed, we’ve had breakfast but we want our milk from godfathers today.” Percy puts Eve into Aziraphale’s lap and the bottle on the table. “Definitely the antichrist,” she mouths over her head.

Eve reaches for Dog who submits stoically to a prodding because this, after all, is his destiny.

Aziraphale pours Percy a mug of tea which she drinks standing up while helping herself to toast and slices of cheese.

Crowley saunters over with feigned nonchalance for his morning cuddle with Eve. He lifts her high into his arms with suddenly clean hands and she chatters excitedly to him pointing at Aziraphale’s boiled egg.

“Dearest, she wants to see you swallow a hard-boiled egg whole again.”

Percy looks appalled.

“He only does it on snakey days,” Aziraphale explains.

She shudders, “Fine by me.”

“I’m not a show pony,” Crowley objects. “Uh - show serpent. But I might be peckish later.” Such a soft touch.

Percy finishes her breakfast, kisses Eve and hurries off to where her car is parked in the driveway, promising to be home early.

“Why don’t you give Eve her drink,” Aziraphale says to Crowley. “I have tea to finish.”

Eve willingly settles in Crowley’s arms. He has always been good with the tiny ones. They sense they have his complete attention and Aziraphale knows how special that makes one feel. Aziraphale, on the other hand, admits to being occasionally distracted. Although leaving her in the delicatessen was a one-time thing which there is no call for everyone to keep harping on about. And, whatever it pleased Crowley to suggest, he would never trade her in for stilton, no matter how long it had been aged.

When Eve is holding the bottle by herself, Crowley reaches for Aziraphale’s hand.

“I’ve been reading about some humans in Brazil,” Aziraphale says. 

“Oh, yes?”

“They’ve set up a group to protect the forest you planted twenty years ago.”

“Good for them.”

“What I’m thinking is, you might help them.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to –“

“From here. Now you’ve almost got your powers back.”

“What are you thinking?”

“You always seem to know how their minds work and how their technology functions. Perhaps you can think of a way to help the humans carry on your work themselves. Perhaps we can combine our powers and work together.”

Crowley gives him one of his vaguely insulting, ‘you’re not as stupid as you look’ looks, leans across and kisses him.

*~*

Percy had once asked them what Heaven was like. Crowley had gone on an extended rant about operating theatres, corporate headquarters, evil banks and shopping malls where you can’t get a drink.

“And Hell is no better,” he said. “It’s just the same, but a health and safety nightmare with no natural light.”

She wasn’t satisfied with those answers, despite Aziraphale assuring her of their accuracy. Crowley simply nodded at the garden which was, on that day, sunlit, blooming and alive with fluttering, swooping sparrows.

“Heaven and Hell are the opposite of here,” he said.

Oh, Aziraphale agrees. Home is so different to either of those other places, and a far pleasanter prospect. With the children both doing so well and Crowley home, apparently content and waking in his arms each morning, he believes he has never been happier. 

Eve has so far exhibited no troublesome powers. She has the ability to compel all of them to bend to her will, but this is because she is adorable rather than satanic. Neither have there been any curious visitors from above or below. It is, however, early days.

This time there will be no talk of ruling the Earth or treading enemies underfoot. They won’t go too far the other way either. They will help Percy raise a human. Whatever that might mean in this stolen future they are navigating. And with Crowley’s powers returning, they will be ready should four bikers ride into town.

End

January 2021


End file.
